NBA Sunday

LeBron James watched a group of reporters converge on Antawn Jamison in the locker room and yelled to his new teammate.

"Don't worry about that," a smiling James said, mixing in a few expletives. "You're home. They still love you."

Jamison burst out laughing. What else could he do? Jamison had just gone 0-for-12 from the field in his debut with Cleveland in his hometown Friday night in the Cavaliers' 110-93 loss to the Charlotte Bobcats.

"It was just one of those nights," Jamison said before turning more serious. "It won't happen again. I promise you that."

Two days after Cleveland acquired what it believes may be the key piece to winning a championship, Jamison had five shots blocked and threw up two airballs. . . .

The general assumption around the league is that if center Zydrunas Ilgauskas is bought out by Washington, he will sit out the required 30 days and then return to Cleveland.

But Atlanta also may be in the running if such a situation occurs, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Ilgauskas could back up Al Horford or play alongside him, with Horford sliding over to power forward. That move would beef up the Hawks' front line in the playoffs against the likes of Orlando's Dwight Howard and Cleveland's Shaquille O'Neal. The Hawks' only other options at center at the moment are Zaza Pachulia, Jason Collins and Randolph Morris. . . .

When Tim Duncan grabbed 26 rebounds — one shy of his career high — but made only 4 of 23 shots in a victory over Indiana, he became the first NBA player to have 25 or more rebounds while missing at least 19 shots in a non-overtime game since Dave Cowens accomplished that dubious feat for Boston in 1973.

However, 11 of Duncan's rebounds were on the offensive end, with many coming off his own misses. . . .

Portland general manager Kevin Pritchard says the team and Marcus Camby are "dating" right now and he doesn't rule out the possibility of re-signing Camby after this season. . . .

Josh Howard called a report that he missed a game last month with the Dallas Mavericks because he had a hangover a "lie."

After Howard scored 20 points to help his new team, the Washington Wizards, beat the Denver Nuggets on Friday night, he was asked about the ESPN.com report.

Howard said, "I'm not responding to a lie."

— Compiled from wire sources

Game of the week

Lakers at Mavericks

Sure, the Lakers pretty much already have the No. 1 seed wrapped up in the West, but this will be a big one for the new-look Mavs on Wednesday night in an ESPN-televised game. Dallas is in the thick of the hunt for the No. 2 seed along with Denver and Utah.

NBARankings

1. Los Angeles Lakers: Didn't make a deal, but deepest team in league didn't need to.

2. Cleveland Cavaliers: Antawn Jamison's debut was awful, but he should help during playoffs.

3. Denver Nuggets: Team will be without its head coach during Karl's cancer treatments.

4. Utah Jazz: D-Will upset about Brewer being traded, but team still won in Oakland.